Sunday, May 3/2020

Eight new cases of coronavirus in the South, bringing their total to 872, or 556 active. Doesn’t really bode particularly well for any re-opening of the border. North now at one active case and not likely to wish to open its only land border to a country with many more. And not as if the South is pushing for an opening. They acknowledge that there is little threat from Turkish Cypriots but point out, fairly enough, that Turkey has a large number of active cases, currently over 59,000 and there are many Turks in the TRNC. There are, but none are free to enter now and those few who entered after the middle of March have done fourteen days isolation. This should make it a non-issue, although that would depend on the actors on both sides genuinely wanting solutions.